


The Portland Job

by sgteam14283



Category: Leverage, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Pre-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 21:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2165517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgteam14283/pseuds/sgteam14283
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While in Portland Clint and Natasha run into a former partner of his and get help from the least likely place. A brew pub.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Portland Job

**Author's Note:**

> Written for be_compromised's annual promptathon and anuna_18's prompt which was a Leverage/Avengers crossover. Got the idea that Clint and Eliot would know each other from their freelancing days and ran with it. Take's place during nebulous s5 of Leverage and pre-Avengers. Don't own anything you see here, just play in the sandbox enjoy!

Walking into the brew pub Clint could see that they were in-between the lunch and dinner crowds, which was fine for him because he didn’t feel like scanning a full room for potential assailants. But as they were led to their booth he did notice that there were plenty of escape routes in addition to a pool table and felt slightly better about things. “I’m starving, what’s good here?” he asked while picking up the menu that was behind the condiment rack and flipping the drinks aside. 

“Everything apparently.” Natasha replied while doing the same. They were in Portland for some recon, trying to track down the warehouse of a gun runner, and were hitting brick walls. Knowing they needed a break she had suggested they try a brew pub that had been on the downturn but had suddenly gotten a second life when new owners took over and the food became amazing. Guessing that they might even have a pool table, Natasha figured Clint could use a few games to take his mind off his frustration. 

“Well that doesn’t help. What if we get six different things and just split them?”

“I think Sara would lecture you again on fiscal responsibility and how while it may seem like it, SHIELD isn’t made of money.”

Clint knew without even looking up that Natasha was smiling and smirked as well, remembering how the younger woman had spent the better part of an hour telling him how scrawling ‘arrows: a lot’ on a napkin didn’t count as a business receipt and without giving up his supplier as well as actual proof of purchase couldn’t get reimbursed. “Well I guess I’ll have to settle for stealing your food then.” he teased while setting down the menu and then reached for the glass of water.

“If what I’ve heard about the food is true you better not or you might need a week to recover.” 

Clint just threw Natasha a playful look as their waitress came to get their orders. They started with the fried pretzel cheese curds that were piping hot and melt-in-your-mouth delicious with the aioli dipping sauce, then when his grilled chicken sandwich with pesto mayo and fresh cut fries arrived he could see Natasha eye it with a hint of jealousy, although if he was being honest her salad looked just as good as well. “Mmmm…can we move SHIELD here so I can come here for lunch every day?” 

“You’d get fat pretty quickly if we did.” Natasha teased as Clint playfully threw a fry at her. She picked it up and popped it into her mouth without hesitation and inwardly smiled at how light yet delicious it was. “Besides I don’t think Fury would even consider it.” 

“Maybe if we bring him back some food.” 

Natasha just laughed and finished off her drink. “You think you can fit in dessert?” she asked once their plates were cleared.

“Not if I want to explode, I’m that full. Let’s play a few rounds of pool and then we’ll talk.”

“Don’t you mean that I watch you play?”

“I’ll let you break first.” 

“So kind.” Natasha said as Clint headed towards the bar to get the cue ball and two beers. They were pretty much done for the day so it wouldn’t hurt to relax for the rest of it. True to his word, Clint let her break first and she managed to get a few of the solids in before she missed; stepping back as Clint lined up his first shot and sunk three stripes into the corner pockets. The rest soon followed and Clint was lining up his shot for the eight ball when glanced up and Natasha noticed that his grip around the cue tightened. 

Turning around, Natasha expected someone coming at them with a knife or gun but there was no one-save a guy with long hair at the bar, his face looking down at something. “What’s-”

“We’re leaving.” Clint interrupted as he dropped the cue and started for the door.

“Why?” Natasha grabbed his arm to stop him from leaving. She was confused by his behavior and knew that it had something to do with the man at the bar. Looking into her partner’s eyes she saw surprise mixed with confusion and wondered what who that man meant to Clint. “Clint-“

“Barton!”

“ _Shit._ ” Clint thought as he turned to see Eliot striding towards him. Ducking the punch that was coming his way, Clint moved his foot to hook Eliot’s leg and catch him off balance but Eliot twisted and caught him in a headlock. Slamming his elbow into Eliot’s side, he heard something being picked up and glancing up as far as he could saw that Natasha had grabbed one of the wooden pool cue’s and was swinging it towards Eliot. 

There was the sound of wood cracking and Eliot’s grip loosened enough for Clint to get out of the hold, straightening to see Natasha complete a roundhouse kick and Eliot just avoiding it. “Nat!” 

Natasha planted her floor on the ground and held up her arms in a defensive stance, glancing between Clint and the man. “What’s going on here Clint?” 

“Damn Barton, your partner’s got a nice punch. A little slow on the upswing but a nice follow through.” Eliot said with a grin. He had been in the kitchen, putting together a new tasting menu, and had come out to make sure that they were ready for the dinner rush when he’d glanced up and saw the last person he’d expected to see playing pool with an attractive redhead.

“That’s ‘cause she was trying to avoid hitting me. Trust me you don’t want to mess with Natasha, she’ll take you out like it was nothing.” Clint stuck out a hand for Eliot to take and clapped his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “What I want to know is why are you here? Give up being a hitter?”

“Not exactly. That’s more of a side thing now, I take care of the kitchen here. What about you? Still freelancing?”

“Nah. I’m legit now, been with an organization for a long time now.” Clint grinned as Eliot motioned for them to follow him to the bar. “Nat’s my partner.”

“I bet she keeps you out of trouble.”

“More like the other way around, although we manage to get into our own bit of trouble when on assignment.”

Natasha watched the two interact as she sat down and leaned her arms against the polished wood. It was obvious that the two had a past but she couldn’t figure out what that was. The way that Eliot had tried to hit Clint meant that there was bad blood, but now the way they were teasing each other indicated that there wasn’t that much animosity. “You’re Spencer from the Brussels job.” she blurted out, everything making sense at once.

“How much did you tell her?” Eliot asked, looking at Clint with a raised eyebrow. He was surprised that the younger man had mentioned the Brussels job, since he knew that Clint didn’t like to discuss his past. Hell, he hadn’t even mentioned that job to Parker let alone the rest of the team (not that he was big on sharing in the first place).

“Only that I saved your ass.” Clint replied, knowing that was a half-truth and that both of them had barely escaped without one or both getting seriously hurt.

Eliot chucked at the statement and set the beers that he’d been pulling on the counter in front of Clint and Natasha each. “More like we both saved each other’s. But if it hadn’t been for your sharpshooting it would’ve been even more fucked up.” 

“What were you after, if you don’t mind me asking.” Natasha quickly added, knowing that there were still missions from her past that she didn’t feel like talking about. 

“We were both sent to retrieve an item that ended up not being there; we were set up. Turns out our so-called ‘employer’ was really hired by a third party to get rid of us. But we managed to send the message that wasn’t the best idea.”  
“Never did figure out who set us up, was going to but not long after that I got picked up by the agency and got buried in trying to pick off the really bad guys.” Clint added while exchanging a look with Natasha.

“If you’re working with an agency why are you in Portland?” Eliot asked, changing the subject. He wouldn’t let Clint know that he’d found out who had tried to get them. After they had gone after Moreau, Hardison had cracked the man’s computer files and out of a sense of morbid curiosity Eliot had looked and found that Moreau had been the one that wanted them taken care of. Knowing why the man had wanted him dead but not Clint made Eliot wonder what information the sharpshooter had been keeping. But he’d decided against asking because they all had their secrets to bear and from the way that Natasha (whom he suspected was the Black Widow) and Clint acted they understood that perfectly.

“Here on a job, trying to track down a gun runner who’s got a warehouse around here. So far our sources have come up dry.”

“What’s the guys name?” 

“Everyone calls him Church but our files say his name’s Michael Tucker and he’s operating somewhere by on the docks, but the geeks in ops can’t track down the exact place.” 

“Michael Tucker.” Eliot echoed, the name ringing a bell. Hardison had flagged his name as someone to keep track of, but Nate had said he wasn’t a big enough of a problem to warrant it. However if another agency was going after him they needed to rethink that. “Anything else he’s into?”

“So far just guns, but with those kinds of guys there could be more.” Natasha said in a casual tone but knew her face betrayed what she was really thinking. While going over the dossier and scoping out the area where they thought the warehouse was neither had found any evidence of human trafficking but just because there weren’t any signs didn’t mean that it wasn’t happening.

Eliot could tell what Natasha’s tone implied and feeling a surge of anger could tell from the way Clint was sending look towards Natasha that he understood as well. “I think I can help, I know someone who’s really good at getting in anywhere online. He’ll track down Tucker by tomorrow.” 

“Really? Since when did you hang out with hackers?” Clint asked while finishing the last of his beer and smiling a little at the look Natasha gave him.

“Long story. Come back tomorrow afternoon and I’ll have the info you need.”

“We’ll see you then.” Natasha said while standing and throwing Eliot a quick smile. “And sorry about the pool cue, I can replace it.”

“Nah, we’ve got spares in the back in case something like that happens.”

Natasha waited until they were walking back to the SHIELD safe house before she asked, “If you two are friends then why did Spencer attack you when he first saw you?”

“Oh that…it involved Bishop and a tiny misunderstanding.” 

“A tiny misunderstanding? The man had you in a sleeper hold.” 

Clint chuckled and ran a hand through his hair, “Trust me when I say that he wasn’t really trying to hurt me. And I think he can get this information about Tucker for us.”

“I never said that he couldn’t.” 

“But you were thinking it.” 

Natasha shot a glance at Clint that told him all he needed to know and as they entered the apartment complex the safe house was located in, wondered why someone like Eliot was running a brew pub kitchen.

—

The place was bustling when Clint and Natasha came back the next day and they settled for playing a few rounds of pool while they waited for Eliot to get a free moment. Natasha wasn’t surprised that Clint dominated, she didn’t expect anything else, and was having a nice time. Watching Eliot out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that he seemed to change his personality to fit with whomever had his attention. “ _Almost like a grifter would._ ” she thought to herself as he made his way towards them. 

“Here’s what you’re looking for, turns out he has the warehouse in Rivergate; he was just using a system of warehouses under shell companies to launder the money.” Eliot said as he held out a slip of paper towards Clint.

“Shit.” Clint took the slip and glanced at it before passing it on to Natasha. “We’ll have to let Hill know so she can tell off the guys in ops.” 

“How did your guy find it so fast? We’ve had the best tracking Tucker down for the better part of a year.” Natasha asked as she pocketed the paper.

“Something with firewalls and opening a backdoor to the system…not sure exactly but when Hardison goes off on his rants I tend to block it out.” Eliot replied with a smile. Hardison had complained about such a tight deadline at first but once Eliot promised the man to make him dinner for the next week he found it out in no time. “He did mention that Tucker’ll be at the Rivergate warehouse tonight-most likely unloading a shipment, so if you want to hit him that’d be the time to do it.”

“That’s what we were thinking. You want to come with us? An extra hand is always welcome.” Clint said while nodding towards the door. “You can see some of the tricks I can do with my bow.” 

Eliot chucked but shook his head, “Sorry, but there’s another job that we’re working on and the team needs me. But I can get you some sandwiches to go-any requests?”

“That grilled chicken with the pesto mayo. Nat what about you?” 

“The same.” Natasha watched as Eliot headed back to the kitchen to get their sandwiches and looked at Clint. The fact that he’d asked Eliot, someone he hadn’t seen in years, to stakeout the warehouse with them implied that he really was good at his job. But she still wanted to hit him for asking that, given how they had no idea what they were about to walk into and if it went south it wouldn’t be good with someone she’d had no experience fighting with. She had raised her arm to give Clint a good wack on the shoulder for that when a familiar British voice asked someone named Nate when they were going to finish the job. Turning around she saw a middle-aged brunette and asked, “Sophie?”

“Natalie?” Sophie was surprised to see the woman standing in the brew pub with someone whom she could only guess was her associate. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I help run this place.” Sophie knew Nate was going ask her where she knew Natalie from but didn’t know how to explain everything that had happened in Seville. “What about you?”

“I’m here on a vacation with my boyfriend.” Natasha replied while reaching for Clint’s hand and giving it a quick squeeze. Clint was going to tease her later but she didn’t care. Thankfully before Clint could dig for more information Eliot appeared with their food and after promising to call the next time so they could meet up properly, stepped out into the fading light. 

“So…Sophie?” Clint asked as he unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite while keeping pace with Natasha. 

“She’s a grifter. We were both in Seville…working and had a conversation on the best pair of heels to run in.” Natasha replied with a shrug. “You want to head to the warehouse now or wait for dark?”

“Now would be good. That way we can see if they’re waiting for a shipment or unloading it.” Clint replied as they reached their cover car and headed away from the pub. As Natasha drove Clint idly wondered what Eliot was doing that involved a grifter and a brewery. But he figured whatever it was couldn’t be all that bad since it seemed like Eliot was a bit lighter than the last time he’d run into the man. Something that him and Nat were slowly working at as well.


End file.
